The Record: Christie hypocrisy

A STATE in fiscal crisis should not be giving employees lavish pay increases. Especially not to the governor’s staff. But that is precisely what happened in Trenton.

Twenty-three members of Governor Christie’s staff who work in communications, scheduling or on the governor’s advance team, received average salary increases this year of about 23 percent. In some cases, individuals who left the governor’s staff last year to work on his reelection campaign returned after the election and were rewarded with significant boosts in pay.

For some staffers, pay shot up by more than 40 percent. One communications specialist went from $75,000 a year to $110,000, a 46 percent jump. An aide who accompanies Christie just about everywhere he goes saw his salary rise from $80,000 a year to $115,000, a 43 percent increase. In total, about $338,000 in raises was awarded.

It’s worth remembering that since assuming office in January, 2010, Christie has vocally and rightly condemned excessive public salaries. He ended years of nepotism and exorbitant pay levels at the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, called the former Parsippany superintendent of schools a "poster boy for greed" after he objected to the state’s new salary cap and just recently, prevented staffers at the Pinelands Planning Commission from getting 5 percent raises.

With that backdrop, it is both galling and hypocritical for personnel in the governor’s office to get such huge pay increases when the state is in the midst of a budget crisis. And to make matters worse, the administration refused two requests from The Record for the salary information under the Open Public Records Act. The data were released only after the newspaper sued. Public salaries are supposed to be immediately released under the law.

It’s true that within the context of an estimated $33 billion budget, $338,000 is not a lot of money. In fact, it’s less than one-tenth of one percent of the budget. But this is not about arithmetic. It’s about perception and acting appropriately in lean economic times.

The governor announced this month that he would not make $2.4 billion in pension payments because of an $800 million gap in the current budget and a projected shortfall in the budget for fiscal 2015, which begins July 1. Christie also postponed a property tax rebate program that primarily benefits seniors and disabled New Jerseyans.

These moves come with consequences. Not paying the state’s pension bill violates a pledge the governor reinforced when he signed a pension reform bill in 2011. Cutting rebates adversely affects low-income homeowners struggling with property taxes that are among the highest in the nation.

The public has a right to expect that the governor practice the fiscal discipline he’s imposing on others. That’s not happening here. When a governor responds to a budget gap by permitting huge salary increases for his own staff, any talk about the need for statewide fiscal restraint begins to sound pretty hollow.

Spokesman Michael Drewniak, who got a raise himself, albeit a small one, said the increases reflected changes in position, promotion or expanded responsibility. That explanation hardly justifies more than 20-percent pay hikes.